One of the legacies of Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship (1964-1988) is that most ordinary citizens have become political and politicized individuals. Another legacy is that even the smallest daily acts can turn into heroic gestures of resistance.

I was once stopped by two policemen while driving through São Paulo’s mysterious dawn with Virginia, my girlfriend at the time. She was a model. I was a young bohemian, high on the night’s urban poetry. We were interrogated brusquely, and duly searched. My hand-crafted key-holder chain, at one end of which was a Victorinox Swiss army knife, was mistaken for an improvised lethal weapon.

The police officers wanted to know why I was carrying such a device. I had to tell them the truth: origami. Their puzzlement was palpable. It was clear to me that they were unacquainted with the millenary art of paper-folding. To illustrate my point, I took a white paper square from the car and, using my knife to sharpen the creases, folded it into a snowy lily. They looked embarrassed and amused when I offered it to one of them, telling him to give it to his wife, who would always love him for it. And then they let us go. We drove off into São Paulo’s almost empty streets.

Some time later, a philosopher friend told me that the incident reminded her of the ‘60s, when protesters opposed to the Vietnam war would put flowers into the barrels of policemen’s rifles. Except, she added, that my own encounter sounded decidedly more bizarre.

I remember some of the pictures taken in 1967 at the multitudinous Pentagon demonstrations. The most famous of them, of young student Jan Rose Kasmir, was snapped by the photographer Marc Riboud. In another, a floppy-haired, turtle-necked youth calmly puts daisies into the rifles held threateningly by military police.

That connection to the ‘60s, it seems to me now, is more relevant than I realized at the time of the origami episode. While those American kids were protesting in the streets of Washington, young men and women were being rounded up by the army in the streets of Rio and São Paulo. Things would get much worse in 1968.

Although born in the ‘70s, I am, in some ways, a child of that time. My parents, after all, embodied the age’s spirit of resistance to convention better than most people I have known. One proof is in the way they decided to bring me into the world.

Above all, the unlikely outcome of that brief encounter –that strange dawn meeting of police officers, a fashion model and a folded paper flower—is a reminder that our acts always speak more eloquently than so many lofty flights of rhetoric.

Where am I?

Introduction

Passionate about both art and entrepreneurship, the art dealer João Correia founded two companies: Collezionista, an art advisory firm based in São Paulo, and, I Know What I Like, a contemporary art debate society based in London. He also writes regularly to the media and to this personal blog in English and Portuguese languages.

Testimonials

João Correia was invited to give a talk about art and its market to a group of graduate art students at the Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo. This complex theme was dealt with in a realistic manner, based in his signicant work exper…

Marilucia BottalloDiretora TécnicaInstituto de Arte Contemporânea

Dear João,

Your talk was very interesting ! Your work is very professional . Congratulations !

Regards,

Patricia Mendes Caldeira

Joao, throughout his career, has demonstrated superb taste married to perseverance in expanding the scope of his international contacts. I trust his judgment in unfamiliar areas of collecting.

Judy SchalickLady of Finchingfield

Hey Joao!

You are really doing some AMAZING work. Congratulations!!

Joao Unzer

João,

I learned a lot from your analysis and systematization. I really liked the Kunstkompass event. I will be in the next one, count on me.

Mauro CavallettiJWT São Paulo

“João really understands art, not just its market, which is a rare combination.”

Melanie GerlisArt Market EditorThe Art Newspaper

As a professional working in Publishing I am always after the most exciting content being generated in the London art scene. This is what led me to join I Know What I Like, a discussion group João founded in 2010. What I discovered was an intellectu…

Alenka OblakPhaidon Press

João,

I really like the article. I am going to share it with some of our clients who are always discussing this subject!

Yannick

Yannick CarvalhoRaquel Arnaud Gallery

We feel Joao Correia is our man in Sao Paulo. His opinions and expertise means a lot for us and beyond his articles we believe he could be the right editor in a future project: Art Democracy Brazil.